A Thing or Two About Fish

Well you learn something new every day. Dutch Harbor is North America's largest fishing port in terms of volume. But where do you think all those fishes are headed? If you guessed America, you'd only be partly right. They do get to the lower 48, eventually. But the majority of it makes stops in China and/or Korea. There the fish (mostly pollock and cod) are turned into exciting things like Filet-o-fish patties and other fast-food instant fish products.

It's mind boggling that it's actually cheaper to load up a big freighter ship and sail it over to Asia than to have it turned into filet-0-fish patties right here in the good old U S of A. Especially with today's gas prices. At any rate, here it's turned into squished rectangular 16.5 pound boxes of frozen fish, packed into refrigerated container vans, and stacked on a ship like the one to the right.

We learned all of this from our neighbor, who is a fish inspector. He inspects the fish before they head off to Asia. (Some of the fish, of course, go straight to the States and to Japan, like salmon, crab, and pollock roe, the latter being surprisingly lucrative.)

How much pollock are we talking about? About 3.2 billion pounds per year. Now that's something to think about as you enjoy your fishwhich!